[Bio-Tech] Template for Female Space Colonists

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by scc

If polygamy develops from the described gender in-balance free child care might be a product of the household, one of the mothers can mind the children while the others are available for work, a lot better system then was used traditionally.

You generally want to pick up the right upbringing/education tradition before you start out, not hope that it will spontaneously emerge before the colony perishes.

Originally Posted by scc

@Angle, what makes you think that? Those machines still need raw materials, still need maintenance, in fact the whole set up is likely to require more spare parts due to more machines, and that ignores the theory that a certain population is required to support certain industries/products.

Which is why you want TL9 Fabricators and 3D-Factories. Sure, they're not as efficient as TL9 assembly lines and arguably even TL8 ones, but they give you a big thing that TL8 just doesn't provide:
They allow you to dodge infrastructure requirement due to their flexibility, so instead of having a {no production; no production; enough production to fulfil all the colony's needs; needs fulfilled, so now the assembly line is shut down and we need to build another one for a different type of production}, you get to always build whatever you need, and once a need is fulfilled, you just switch to building the other thing you need. And you use facs to build more facs if you can spare the resources and workhours (and you should, otherwise there's no hope for the colony to develop).

Originally Posted by scc

If children are a larger portion of the population the cost of educating them would be higher, thanks for pointing that out, but if TL is lower they don't need as much education.

The need for children is me figuring that populations above certain sizes are required for higher TL's, and before that's achieved there's no interstellar trade.

Thing is, you're more interested in keeping TL at 9 if you want to get interstellar in a reasonable amount of time.
With 100,000 worth of people and life support, you can actually support that, sort of. Depending on the environment. If the planet is ecologically hostile, you'll need TL9 just to survive there anyway. If it's friendly, your job is much easier, and now you can afford to carry whatever stuff you need to keep a gradually-growing TL9 mini-arcology or the like. Assuming that one human is actually 1 tonne worth of life support and other equipment carried by the colony ships, you might actually want to reduce the starting population if it increases your ability to maintain TL9. For maintaining TL9, you'll want enough fabricators, computers, AIs and other software to compensate for a lack of specialists.
It is important that a return on 'investment' into a fabricator or a similar universal construction device is around 0.1% per hour. The actual number will be somewhat lower, because you need to deal with processing 'minerals' into the level of production that lies between 'minerals' and 'final product'. But it's still quite good, because you can essentially double your production in around 2-4 months.

TL9 education is a priority, and has no substitutes: you can't afford to wait 200 years or the like to get back to TL9 from 'scratch' (actually TL5-7), as by that point the home civilisation will likely advance enough to send cheaper ships with more colonists.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Which is why you want TL9 Fabricators and 3D-Factories. Sure, they're not as efficient as TL9 assembly lines and arguably even TL8 ones, but they give you a big thing that TL8 just doesn't provide:.

That would require resource extraction infrastructure and therefore a decent sized population base. Otherwise you are going to be dependent on importation of goods via starship. Not that there's anything wrong with that most of the time.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That would require resource extraction infrastructure and therefore a decent sized population base. Otherwise you are going to be dependent on importation of goods via starship. Not that there's anything wrong with that most of the time.

I mentioned that issue, and this is why you will want to reduce the population and replace some of that mass with resource-extracting robots, this being TL9 and all. Assuming the colonised world is ecologically friendly, the amount of biomass you can pull through space is not the prime limiting factor.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

You want increase HT level to remain healthy in less the ideal planetary condition (epcially radiation)

TL9 colonisation is going to be intra-solar system location, not extra-solar system "New Earth"s

Not necessarily, given the right superscience (and when discussing extra solar colonization the right superscience is always in the cards). And many sci-fi universe full out stop the tech progression long before you get to 12.

The situation I'm seeing here is a new world has been discovered, and for whatever reason someone desires to put a huge popuation of humans on it as soon as possible with a small starting population. Its assumed the colonists can but the land to producing food for them with minimum effort -- the land is an eden waiting to be filled (via either gene tweak. Time is apparently of the essence. You are not planning to maintain technology levels due to initial population size, so you can't bring enough exowombs to sustain your exponential population explosion. Your budget doesn't permit modern standards of genetic diversity at any level, so you throw that out the window and figure any defects will just kill that line and solve the problem for you. You hope they stay to a minimum and you loose less to inbreeding than you gain with the harem system. Cousin to cousin marriage was extremely common and sustainable in pre-industrial societies, so its probably a safe if calloused bet. Make sure you start with good stock (you're gene tweaking them anyway, so no biggie there).

The only reason you do this is if you need a large population of 'humans' on an eden planet with minimal effort and time. You don't care about technology. You don't care about allegiance or ideology. You just want a large population there as soon as possible.

I'm not sure how this population is supposed to get up to the high TL you wanted to support. If you are going to teach them, who are you going to teach them with, and how will they get to the 'natives' to interact with them? Sending them over to teach is likely to be as expensive as sending an industrial colony in the first place. Relying on records is less than ideal, and you have the wrench in the system of getting the colonists started on the TL path in the first place.

I'm reminded of THE CHILDREN OF INZANAMI (the biotech pyramid 3/24) where legally not-humans are tweaked to perfectly live on alien worlds and mine valuable metals -- it relies on cherry picking planets, but the right superscience lets you do that.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That would require resource extraction infrastructure and therefore a decent sized population base. Otherwise you are going to be dependent on importation of goods via starship. Not that there's anything wrong with that most of the time.

Given the tool kit that substantial population could easyly be a couple of orders of magnitude lower that you would need at Tl 8.

Even if this number is still too big to ship out there I would be willing to bet that the technology will still offer the ability to opperate in semi-isolation in a similar fashion to pre Tl 6 societies.

How big does the OP envision the starting population to be? 100's, 1000's bigger? Personaly I would argue that thousands would be the bare minimum.

Also how hospitable do these colonist think that the target world is going to be? Unless it is a perfect coppy of earth you are going to need high technology and complex infastructure to make things work. Without this the colony project is likely to become a death sentence.

At the risk of repeating myself the central premise, namely rapid growth at all costs, puts this infrastructure in jepardy and perhapse counter intuitively undermines the colony's ability to survive.

[scc]

For those of you argue that I should be able to import the tech base wholesale because of automated factories, why am I even bothering to send people anymore?

And Frost, I'm thinking starting population of around 100,000 people. As for habitability, think stock standard sci fi planet levels

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by scc

For those of you argue that I should be able to import the tech base wholesale because of automated factories, why am I even bothering to send people anymore?

That's up to you to decide. I thought that sending people was the ends, not the means of colonisation. If you don't want people there, don't send them. If you want people to get a civilisation there, then give them everything that is required to allow them to live in such a civilisation.

Originally Posted by scc

As for habitability, think stock standard sci fi planet levels

That's not telling much, given the sample planets I've seen in SF over the years.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by scc

For those of you argue that I should be able to import the tech base wholesale because of automated factories, why am I even bothering to send people anymore?

Because the objective is to settle a human population on your chosen planet?

Less flipantly automated facilities do not nessecarly mean entirely autonomous and self directing facilities. Unless strong AI is a prominent feature of the setting (which at Tl 9, it won't be) then these systems will still need human operators and techs. The point of sending these systems is to maximise the survivability and rate of development of the colony not to replace a human population.

So 100,000 colonists in a relitively forgiving environment where you can breath the air and drink the water and even eat some of the wildlife? I would argue that this kind of set up was tailor made for the kind of scenarios I am describing.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Anders

Such as the need to have several hot women wait on you.

If it's a frontier situation, nobody is going to be glamourous. But a few generations on, this could get complicated.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

If your goal is to increase birth rate, why would you want to make them bisexual? At best, that's a non-factor.

If women are going to outnumber men, and a group of women is going to share and acceptable male, bisexuality would reduce frustraition and misery and make for group solidarity.

You'd probably end up with group marriages with the women teaming up to run things and the guys negotiating their place in the home/family. You'd probably need the guys to be either bisexual too, as a means to cut down infighting.